


last night put my heart on a platter

by orphan_account



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-10-31 23:51:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10909995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Julian’s just a fucking kid.





	last night put my heart on a platter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ruinsrebuilt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruinsrebuilt/gifts).



> sorry for any typos
> 
> title taken from [no turning back by natalie lain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_vgpl1JFZM)
> 
> Ash this is for you!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Julian’s just a fucking kid.

The kid comes in just as they walk into Bastogne. No extra ammo, no winter gear—fuckin’ _nothing_ but what they’ve got on their backs—and this kid comes in wide-eyed, pale skin free of bloodstains and shrapnel scars, with the other replacements. Babe finds himself looking at him like Bill, Joe, and the others look at the new faces; they’re so green they’re American-manufactured  fuckin’ grass stains, and it’s not Babe’s fault, not really, that the kid kind of just sidles up next to him as they march through the cold dark.

He says his name is Johnathan Julian—except nobody ever called him Johnathan but his ma—so it was John Julian, his young face open as the snow falls down, and Babe just stares at him for a moment before saying, “Jesus, Julian, y’mind saving that energy for when we run into the fuckin’ krauts?” but he says it with less bite than he’s heard Bill use in the last several minutes alone when it comes to the replacements, and Julian takes that as an invitation of sorts, and he keeps up with him as Bastogne reaches for them, eager to gulp them down.

Julian’s just a fucking kid. The war Babe’s in has only touched Julian through news reels and war bond sales. It’s hard not feel a bit prickly, watching kids like him—like that fella Eugene Jackson, who doesn’t look old enough to tie his own fuckin’ boots when the light hits him just the wrong way—walk into this war when it never shoulda started in the first place.

Babe knows he’s young. They all are. But these kids—they haven’t _seen_ it, tasted it, been _through_ it like anyone else over here has. Even the children they passed on the way here looking a thousand years old in their big eyes, their lips pressed together to form thin lines, but the replacements—they feel like the youngest of all.

Julian looks like he’s ‘bout to veer off into the snow; it’s only right for Babe to take him by the arm and tug him over onto the path. In front of him, Bill is saying something to Joe, and Joe’s telling some of the other replacements who don’t know a thing about listening to their NCOs to _shut up already_ , and he can’t see who’s behind him, but they’re near the back anyway, so—

“What’s your name?” Julian asks.

A split second passes: “Babe.”

“So, Babe,” Julian says, and he opens his mouth and home comes out. Philly streets murky with slush and dimly lit windows from closed storefronts pour out of him, even though the kid’s not even from there, and, like Bill does, Babe thinks about telling this kid to beat it and join the rest of the replacements huddled closer to the front of the marching block of men, but he keeps his mouth shut—remembering that his ma once said it might be a good thing for him to do every now and then—and he listens, growing heartsick and homesick as Julian tells him about the state of things back on American soil.

Later that night, Babe helps Julian dig his foxhole; they fall asleep sitting across from each other while the snow keeps on falling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
